UNICEF has called for accelerated action against child
marriage and genital mutilation after its new report revealed the
continued prevalence of both practices. Seven-hundred-million women
alive today were married before they were 18. WORLD -2

The wife of an Israeli diplomat in India and her driver were injured Monday when the car they were traveling in was bombed, while another bomb was defused outside an Israeli embassy in Tblisi, Georgia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran, which he called “the greatest exporter of terror in the world.”

With 273 days remaining until the presidential election, some of our readers might already be getting sick of listening to the latest blather from the candidates. Still, a rather blistering analysis of President Obama’s recent actions at Politico is worth checking out. Maybe this line will pique your interest: “So much for the high road: Victory is more important than purity … He’s made a series of calculated, overtly political gestures that are far more transactional than transformational.”

A dozen different ways to get your holiday on

This time of year casts a bright, if cold, light on the many traditions that converge in America. Our shopping sprees and hectic schedules are time trial races and affectations that keep our eyes off the meaning — if there is any such holy grail to be found — of the holidays.

Tax levies make up for state budget cuts, aging of facilities

With four countywide tax levies on the November ballot, the most since 1994, you would expect the public to balk. But with two in particular — levies in support of the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County — that doesn't seem to be the case, with widespread support for both.